Aphantasia is a real thing
If you were able to imagine an 'elephant crushing a little yellow car with one foot' in your 'mind's eye' then you do not suffer from Aphantasia.
Quick - picture an elephant crushing a little yellow car with one foot.
If you were able to imagine an 'elephant crushing a little yellow car with one foot' in your 'mind's eye' then you do not suffer from Aphantasia.
Officially the condition (only formally named in 2015) is defined as the 'inability to voluntarily visualise mental images' and apparently there are indeed numerous people who genuinely suffer from it.
It also turns out the competency of mental visualisation in humans falls on a spectrum; from zero ability (aphantasia) on the one side, to extreme levels of imagination on the other, termed hyperphantasia.
What this means is that some people are just naturally better at visualising things that do not already exist. The ability to imagine is not a given.
Now, close your eyes, and mentally picture the same 'elephant crushing a little yellow car with one foot' in your 'mind's eye' and rate what you see on a scale from 1 (photographic visualisation) through to 5 (no visualisation at all).
If you rated yourself a 5, don't take your gift for granted; the future is literally yours to create.